Friday, September 14, 2012

Yeats - Among School Children

Among Leaving Certificate students actually. It's fun to act as Yeats and answer questions about his poems.

Yeats is so difficult to pin down and his poems have such variety of topic and mood that he's quite difficult to study. Also very much a public man engaged in the history of his time.

They knew the poems, and some had favourites - An Irish Airman Foresees his Death - and one they didn't like - The Lake Isle of Innisfree.

I was asked why I changed my mind about the Irish middle classes between September 1913 and Easter 1916 referring to those two poems. Difficult!!

The costume, such as it was, was fun. The beard was out of place of course but I did remember to turn off my mobile telephone apparatus.

I was able to boast about my poems being included in this new iPhone app.

It's actually interesting to see what Yeats poems are on the Leaving Certificate higher level syllabus:

The Lake Isle of Innisfree September 1913 The Wild Swans at Coole An Irish Airman Foresees his DeathEaster 1916The Second ComingThe Stare’s Nest by My WindowIn Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con MarkiewiczSwift’s EpitaphAn Acre of Grassfrom Under Ben Bulben: V and VIPolitics

That's a great selection and covers his life's well well apart from Maud and the love poems.An Acre of Grass, Swift' Epitaph and Politics are unexpected choices but interesting.

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I'm a retired teacher and ICT Advisor who writes history and poetry. A native of County Sligo now living in Meath. A member of LitLab the Cavan/Meath Writers' Group, of Boyne Writers, Trim, County Meath and former editor of their magazine Boyne Berries.